A good day's work

Today Mom and I rolled up to The Dump around 11:30 and got down to the business of cleaning in a way this place has probably not experienced in 20 years.

We removed the rail and bracket shelving in the living room and large bedroom as well as some random-ass shelving and weird things attached to the wall. Then some sweeping and vacuuming throughout and hands and knees floor scrubbing in the big bedroom to reveal some much-improved hardwood floors:

As a reminder, this is what they looked like before. They are still pretty icky with a lot of wax buildup, but it's a start. I had only enough elbow grease for one room, so the other rooms will get the same treatment tomorrow.

Mom scraped soap scum off the bottom row of tiles and removed the bits of decrepit caulk that were left around the tub. Then I impressed her with my mad-crazy caulking skills (hey, I like having good looking caulk, so I'm pretty well practiced) so that the bathtub can be cleaned tomorrow for the first time in goodness knows how long without risking sending more water into the rotting subfloor (the contractor who visited on Friday said there's no risk of me falling through any time soon, so I might as well clean the bathroom so I don't have to look at this nastiness any longer than necessary). Photos to come for sure!

Also up on the agenda for tomorrow: removal of jasmine from the front porch and carport to open it up and demolition of the infested wooden shed at the back of the house.

I'm also getting some help from Nancy who has given me some 1920's oak flooring salvaged from her house remodel. I sure hope I can put it to use! For now, it's going to live in the garage and hopefully not get eaten by my resident termites.

Jackpot!

So, I met another contractor out at The Dump this morning. We talked a bit, took a tour and then discussed goals/objectives, budget, timing etc.

He liked my ideas for the garage/kitchen expansion and in general agreed with a lot of my objectives for The Dump.

The bonus feature is that he does design work too. That means that I could work with him on a basic design plan, keeping construction budget and timing at the forefront before I spend time and money with an architect to do the actual drawings.

He really listened to me, didn't suggest anything wacky or crazy, and said that he would find a way to work within my budget. The plan/phases he suggested were logical and optimized for cost savings, which I appreciate. Instead of coming in and gutting the place at the start and doing everything all at once, he thinks it's better to spend some time designing, get the plans and permits in place and then start work, moving one section at a time.

He said the foundation looks good and that we could level the house where needed, but not go crazy-expensive on foundation corrective work so that the money could be put to other use. He also said that there is no sense rushing to replace the roof right away (it's watertight) since the garage plan directly impacts the roof.

In general, I really liked him. I think he is knowledgeable, honest and that I can trust him to listen to what I have to say. I'll be really interested to see his preliminary quote and next steps. I think he's the one I'd really like to work with, so I sure hope he doesn't break the bank.

Oh yeah...

I almost forgot! As suspected, there was junk in the shed. Two rakes and a plastic shelving unit which I will adopt, an electric weed eater (Craigslist), and a sump pump with hose (not sure what to do with that one). All in all, not as bad as I suspected.

That sump pump worries me though. I know I'm going to do other work to resolve the drainage issues and keep the crawlspace dry, but I'm sure that pump was previously used to pump water out of the crawlspace. I didn't even stick my head down there to see what it looks like after last weekend's rain. I'll let the contractors sort that out.

First steps

Yesterday afternoon was GREAT! I was able to go do a few things around the house that were really satisfying.

Let me start by saying that I found out yesterday that San Mateo County has a subsidized composting program. For $35 I get a really nice composting bin that retails at Smith and Hawken for $129. I'll send in the order form and check today and will get the bin in 1-3 weeks. I figured that it's a great way to plan ahead for spring planting, and a good way to dispose of all the fall yard waste. However, it doesn't resolve my apple issue in a timely manner, so I was prepared to send them to the trash.

When I got to the house, I discovered that the yard waste bin was already full with leaves and grass, so I had no place to put all those apples until the next yard waste pickup (every other Friday, and the next one is 10/5). There are two normal trash cans, so I left one on trash duty and took one to the back yard for the apples. I filled it and still have apples on the ground. However, I have raked them into nice little piles, so you can actually walk around the yard a bit.

After that, I dead headed the roses , raked the gravel driveway smooth, raked all the magnolia leaves into the flower beds (no room in the bin), and swept out the mini-garage, sidewalk and porch before making my first stamp on the place:
Then I went to work on the inside for a bit. I decided to start at the front of the house and will work on one room at a time, gradually working my way to the back, giving it a good cleaning. Even though it's eventually going to be gutted, there is no sense letting the place stay filthy in the interim.

Really, I wanted to see if the living room hardwood floor cleaned up well enough to consider salvaging.

Lots of people thought I was joking when I said they didn't do anything to spruce up the place before listing it. I assure you, they did not, and I have the photos to prove it. So, I vacuumed the baseboards and corners, to eliminate the obvious dirt/dust bundles, then I tried to dry swiffer. It was so dirty that I could hear the grit under the swiffer against the floor. My vacuum does not have a hard floor attachment and it doesn't do too well when I use the rotating brush on the floors, but I figured it was likely to be an improvement over the swiffer, so I ran it across the room.

Then I switched to the swiffer wet mop wipe. This room is NOT large, but it took TWO wipes to get the job done. And here is what they looked like when I was finished (click on photo for full-sized grossness):
EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! But the floor looked worlds better!

By this time, the sun was well into setting, so there was not enough light to take a photo of the floor. In any event, I think they need a good scrubbing on hands and knees with Murphy's Oil Soap and a coat of wax before they really come around. I'll give it a go and if they clean up nicely, I will definitely plan on keeping them and sacrifice my plan for a radiant heating system.

That's it for Day 1. I won't be out there today, but I have a contractor coming first thing tomorrow morning and may even take the day off to spend the day working there. The weekend will be busy for sure.

Today's plan

Got the keys at 7:00 last night, so I didn't go to say hello to The Dump. My plan for today is pretty much the same as what I had planned to do yesterday. I'm going to try to leave work just after lunch to spend the afternoon up there.

Grrrrr......

It's officially recorded at the county clerk office and now belongs to me, but that nasty Listing Agent isn't returning Nora's calls to arrange delivery of the keys. Nora said the title company is sending the paperwork to her office this afternoon and Nora asked him to be sure to get the keys and send it with the paperwork. I guess I won't be able to do anything for yet another day... *sigh*

Finally...

The big day is finally here--I should get the keys to The Dump sometime this afternoon!

Too bad it's a Tuesday and I have lots of work to do this week so I can't go spend every waking minute at The Dump. However, I do plan to spend a few hours there everyday this week. My street's trash day is Friday and I'd like to have all the apples picked up by then so I have an empty can for the weekend.

I bought rubber gardening clogs at Target this weekend so I can fearlessly wade through the apples in shoes that I can hose off. They are pink, were on the clearance rack (sometimes it pays to have big feet) and I LOVE them and all that they represent.

This afternoon will probably involve a run to Home Depot to get some gardening tools/supplies. Yard work is pretty much all I can do on my own right now, but I think it won't take much to perk the place up a bit so that it looks a bit more respectable--clean up the apples, prune the jasmine, deadhead the roses, rake the gravel back into the driveway, pull weeds out of the driveway, pull out dead plants--that sort of thing. I may plant some bedding plants in the next few weeks just to give it a splash of color and the appearance of tidiness.

I'd like to get a couple contractors out there this week and get the big stuff going pronto, but with all the delays and uncertainty about when it was actually going to close, I haven't gotten any on the sched, so they may be all booked for the rest of the week at this point. We'll see!

In any event, I'm really glad to finally be moving on to the next chapter of this saga. More pictures (and way fewer words) to come later this week!

News flash!

I just talked to Nora--the condo sale recorded today. Yay! She's checking to see if the house sale recorded today too. It might have since the check got there early enough. I'm not holding my breath though...

I also told her that if there is anything in the shed tomorrow, I will be loading it into my car and driving it to the listing agent's office for delivery. There better not be a dead body in there...

eeeeew!

Silver lining

I was really bummed out that I didn't get the keys on Friday, but after it rained ALL DAY on Saturday, I don't feel so bad. I wouldn't have been able to do the yard work I had planned to tackle, and there isn't much inside work for me to do right now. The rain gave me a nice chance to curl up with my knitting that I haven't touched in weeks (months?) and generally decompress after all the weeks of moving-induced activity.

I'm staying optimistic that all will progress as planned this week--condo will close today, house will close tomorrow and I'll be on my way. Stay tuned!

No go

It's not closing today. Or Monday. I won't be closing on the house until Tuesday! I'm really disappointed and am thinking very unkind things about Condo Buyer right now that I'm trying very hard not to articulate out loud.

Looking good

It's looking pretty good to close today. Nora said late yesterday that all the paperwork is in place and it just needs to go to the county office to record. That will hopefully happen by noon, but I won't get the keys until later in the afternoon. In that case, I'll be able to unload the patio furniture from my car, but won't have time to do much else. I'll have a busy weekend ahead of me though!

Waiting

Close of escrow is supposed to happen today. There seems to be a glitch in Condo Buyer's paperwork, so it may close today. Or tomorrow. Or Monday. I won't know until it actually, really, finally happens, which is more than a bit annoying. I had wanted to spend some time there tomorrow and have a contractor or two come for a visit. I can't schedule anything now since there is no certainty that the place will be mine tomorrow.

Cleared out the last of my stuff from the condo last night--it was pretty much just fridge items and patio furniture--and ran the wet Swiffer over the floors one last time. All my patio furniture is currently in my car since I thought I'd be closing today and could take it straight there after work. I'll leave it in there until tomorrow, but if it doesn't close tomorrow, I'll unload it at Mom's or the storage place so I'm not driving around with it all weekend. Extra steps, but what can you do?

Glad that's over

I'm SO glad to have the first part of the moving experience behind me. It was so traumatic, I couldn't even write about it for 24 hours. I selected quite possibly the WORST moving company imaginable--they were late, had limited English skills, didn't have the requested packing material, and here's the capper: took 90 minuted to travel 25 miles at a non-peak traffic hour. It was a horribly frustrating, expensive experience. But it's behind me. All my worldly possessions are contained in a 10'x12' room for the duration of this process. I thought I'd be clever and arrange it so that I could access boxes if needed. Not so much. Not a big deal...

I signed all the paperwork yesterday, so now I'm just waiting for the money to do it's dance so that I can relinquish one set of keys for another. Then the fun really begins!

Speaking of fun, I swung by the house after the moving ordeal on Monday and the lock is STILL on the shed. Nora says the listing agent told her that she won't remove it until close of escrow is complete. I sure hope there isn't a pile of "fun" waiting for me in there. I have no idea why they would want to keep that locked up unless they are hiding something in there. Oh well. Time will tell, I guess. I'll have a big dumpster parked in my driveway at some point, so I'll dispose of anything then if necessary.

Stay tuned for some more photos after the weekend. :)

Counting down

Well, it's finally here--the week it all comes together! Here's a little rundown of the next 7 days:

Today: Couch Guy came to pick up the couch. YAY--space! Continued packing like a crazy lady (with LOTS of help from Mom).

Tomorrow: Finish packing. Move more plants to Kat & Billy's house. Take up residence at Mom's.

Monday: Movers come sometime between 8 and 10. Clean condo.

Tuesday: 8 am--go sign paperwork for sale of condo. Time TBD--go sign paperwork for purchase of dump (this may actually happen on Monday). Keep cleaning condo if not finished on Monday.

Wednesday: Say good bye to my little condo for the last time. It's been awesome to me and I know it will be to it's new owner too.

Thursday: Closing day! Money transfers around magically in its little real estate dance.

Friday: Purchase of house records at the county office and I get the keys to my own little dump. I plan to spend the rest of the day raking up apples, cleaning and generally making the house look a little more respectable. I'll also hopefully meet with a contractor or two.

It seems like a looooong ways away at this end, but I know the week is probably going to pass in a flash. Here's hoping it's a smooth flash.

Kitty prozac

My feline roommate has been been a little traumatized of late. What with all the boxes and total disarray, Mali has detected something is afoot. She's poking around in closets where she has previously had no interest, she's snuggling a LOT closer at night and follows me around the house constantly. Her litterbox revealed that her GI system is maybe perhaps experiencing a little distress too. The kicker was that I went to pet her the other day, and her usually fluffy, silky coat is completely matted. Whether that's stress, or a dislike of the allergen reducer wipes I've begun using recently, she's a mess.

However, for as concerned or stressed as she is during the day, nighttime yields a much bolder, louder, athletic Mali.

Fortunately, I recently read about a product that restores feline bliss:
It's a little plug-in that releases the feline happy pheromone into the air, making cats feel calm and happy. Of course my favorite pet supply store did not have the plug in portion, so I bought a refill bottle and just popped it open for now. I was dubious, but I figured it was worth a try if it was going to reduce the nighttime antics and make the litterbox a happier place.

I think it might actually be working. The past two night have been markedly quiet. I'll be interested to see the effects after I actually plug it into the diffuser.

I think Mali is going to need a haircut to conquer all those matted furballs, but that's a trauma I'll save for another day.

Stuff

Why do we accumulate so much STUFF as we travel through life? As I'm packing what seems to be a never ending stream of belongings, it has made me ponder this. Many are sentimental--hand me downs from my Nana, or memories from adventures, gifts, etc.

For example, I love to cook and bake and many friends know this and so give me kitchen-themed gifts. Do I really need three sets of mixing bowls? A drawer full of gadgets? An endless supply of kitchen towels? I think not.

I'm feeling like I'm under the gun to get everything all ready to move, so I'm not even pausing to weed out anymore. I'm packing things that my or may not find a home in my new house and am simply chucking non-breakable stuff into boxes willy nilly. As I do, I vow to be more discriminating as I unpack. I will certainly have the mother of all yard sales after I move in to the house.

When I do, take a wild guess what I'm NOT going to do with the proceeds... That's right, I'm not got to use them to buy more stuff! I'll put it toward a landscaping fund, or my entertainment kitty, or toss it into savings or something equally productive.

Even with all the stuff, I think I've made good progress this weekend. Took a load of plants to Kat's house for babysitting (and so that she can use up the basil before it fades for the season), and have pretty much emptied the storage closet downstairs. All that remains are cans of paint that I don't know what to do with, by trainer for my bike, and Mali's travel cage. YAY! Though I do need to collect Rosie (cruiser bike) from Natalia who borrowed her while her mom was visiting so they could go cruising into town.

This time next week I'll be completely packed up and ready for the movers to come at 8:00 on Monday morning.

Toasty!

HOT here this weekend. Even so, I've stayed pretty motivated about hauling boxes around. I took a load of stuff up to storage today and assembled a shelving unit that will hopefully help keep things organized. My car is presently loaded for another trip tomorrow. Funtimes!

My storage unit here at the condo is almost empty, and just in time as I discovered a water leak in there on Saturday! It could have been really messy a few weeks ago, but thankfully it wasn't. My goal is to have it completely empty this week.

I spent this evening at Home Depot looking at cabinets, fixtures, flooring, paint, roofing material...pretty much everything. I was trying to get ideas for the house, but really, I needed an hour in some AC.

I spotted a house a few blocks away that has the exact gray exterior, white trim and red door that I'm seeking (I'll take a pic this week). I may go ask them for some info on their paint as it would sure beat getting a bunch of sample quarts and testing all the colors.

Semantics

I called a number of storage places this week and discovered that second floor units are cheaper, which makes complete sense to me, particularly when they do not have an elevator. Most of them do--one of my standard questions this week. Though I will be hiring movers to get out of Cedar Terrace, there is a high likelihood I'll use a U-Haul to move out of storage and into the house, so an elevator is essential.

My first stop today was a little mom and pop storage facility in a sketchy area where you had to get out of your car to activate the keypad to get into the complex. Minor detail since they had offered 1/2 off the price for 3 months (yay!) for 2nd floor units, confirmed that they had a "lift," and the gentleman who answered my questions was so very nice. There is apparently a difference between a "lift" and an "elevator," and I'm not talking about the difference between American English and British English.

After ringing the bell and being told by a property manager that they were not open today (I told her that her husband had told me they would be), I got in. We discussed my needs and she was so unpleasant and PO'd at her husband that I'm surprised she didn't send HIM down to deal with me in the 90-degree heat.

She takes me out to see the unit and we go upstairs and down a rather narrow hallway. She showed me the unit and I asked, "where is the elevator?"
She replied, "We don't have an elevator--we have a lift."
Curious, I asked, "Is it cargo sized or person sized?"
"If you have furniture, you'll have a difficult time getting it up here," came the reply.
"Thank you very much. I won't waste any more of your time."
I bet she gave him hell when she went back to the house!

I drove to the next one which has two different sized units, one of which they said was right next to the elevator. Unfortunately, they had rented the 8x10 on between Thursday and now, so I looked at the 10x13. I agreed to it even though I think it may end up being bigger than I really need. I'd hate to be moving in and find out it's not big enough, so I went with it. They were very nice and threw in a free padlock. Cool. Oh, and it really was right next to the elevator, which is big enough for a small car.

So, between this and scheduling service shut off with both AT&T and PG&E, I feel like I've been very productive in the past 24 hours, despite it being 70 degrees out at 6:30 AM and 90-something during the day.

Next up: securing a moving company.